Belt sanders are known in which an endless abrasive sanding belt passes around a driven roller and a driving roller, and a motor causes the driving roller to rotate to cause the sanding belt to travel over a sanding surface. Such sanders are intended primarily for high stock removal sanding work over large areas such as when sanding wooden floors. However, it is often desirable to clamp the sander in an inverted position so that a user may bring a workpiece into contact with the moving sanding belt, usually for high precision sanding work, such as sanding intricately shaped or delicate workpieces.
It is known to clamp a belt sander in an inverted orientation for this purpose. However, such arrangements suffer from the drawback that when the sander is clamped in an inverted orientation, any switch for controlling the speed of movement of the sanding belt of the sander is inaccessible to the user, making it impossible to control the speed of material removal during the sanding operation. This is a significant drawback in the case of precision sanding operations where there is a risk of damaging the workpiece.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention seek to overcome the above disadvantages of the prior art.